


Silver Suits The Devil

by CountDraluka



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Origin Story, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Blood and Injury, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Implied Witch of the Wilds/Countess, Mild Gore, Necromancy, Shapeshifting, Sorceress!Moira, Witch of the Wilds!Mercy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:40:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24965368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CountDraluka/pseuds/CountDraluka
Summary: “To be burdened with a love spell… I wouldn’t wish that upon my worst enemy, sorceress. But I’m not a miracle worker, or a charitable person, nor do I attempt to be either”, she says, and her words come out kinder than intended.She tells herself it is to soften the disappointment. Perhaps there is a part deep inside her, a part chained to dungeon walls along the row of all her repressed urges and desires, that is relieved to be finally accused of all the crimes she worked so hard to commit.Witch of the Wilds - the title suits her.
Relationships: Moira O'Deorain/Angela "Mercy" Ziegler
Comments: 14
Kudos: 59





	Silver Suits The Devil

**Author's Note:**

> A Witch of the Wilds origin story, based off a prompt I found in a long-lost Instagram/Tumblr post about a shapeshifter putting up a contest for her hand in marriage. As always, take it lightly and enjoy!
> 
> Alternative descriptions include:
> 
> All it takes for Angela to start taking her talents seriously and become the villain of her dreams is for a hot woman to stumble into her life. 
> 
> Angela thinks Moira is a liar and a jerk. Moira, on the other hand, is only trying to hide from her problems, including Angela.

* * *

_“Swore that two lives should be like one_

_As long as the sea-gull loved the sea,_

_As long as the sunflower sought the sun,—_

_It shall be, I said, for eternity_

_‘Twixt you and me!_

_Dear friend, those times are over and done._

_Love’s web is spun.”_

* * *

The child is sobbing, letting out cacophonous gulps of air that scratch his vocal cords raw.

“Get him to stop, please”, commands her mentor. She doesn’t want to, not really, but disobeying orders during a ritual is a nice way to lose a limb, so she approaches the screaming mortal with a bit of caution. Her hands reach to his sweaty temples, gripping with enough force to stop him from thrashing around. She speaks out the incantation. The syllables come out in a practiced articulation. Not a long while later, the child goes slack against the back of the chair. The silence is soothing.

“Hold out his arm.” 

She complies. The needle pricks the skin of his inner forearm, and bright liquid spurts into the container. She worries that maybe they are taking too much.

“Wouldn’t a few strands of hair have been enough for the spell?”, she asks.

“If we wanted to clear out the curse on just the client, then maybe, but he asked for his entire family. And he’s paying a premium for it, too, so it’s better if we are thorough.” Her mentor stops, looking directly at her. “We aren’t killing the child – he won’t even remember it. Stop feeling righteous and focus.”

The somewhat decent part of her thinks of disagreeing, but it is small and emotionally-driven. She has done worse than this, and for a lot less, so she opens the cap of another container and positions it at the mouth of the needle.

* * *

_This story starts with gossip, as many do, and a lost cat in the woods._

* * *

Living in the south side of the village, Angela does not hear about it until a week later, when she is purchasing a tray of fresh pastries from the local bakery. In fact, the woman whom she hears it from, middle-aged and quick for a gossip, nearly smacks an eclair from Angela’s hand as she excitedly gasps at her equally-outraged companion.

“And what’s more: she promised to marry whoever manages to take the pearl from her cat’s name tag!”, the woman exclaims, shouting straight into Angela’s ear as she attempts to squeeze between them and reach the cash register. The baker’s son, freckle-faced and thin as bone, seems just as invested in the afternoon chatter.

“Excuse me?”, says Angela, attempting to catch his attention, but his eyes are fixated on the loud pair.

“She can’t be serious!”

“Well, she has to be, or else the men won’t let her go so easily. Do you know how many suitors proposed to her? Ten, and she hasn’t been here for more than two weeks! I bet she came up with the contest to get some peace from them…”

“Oh my!”

“Sorry”, Angela tries again, placing her items on the counter and reaching for her coin purse. She hands the cashier the precise amount – two gold, three silver, five copper – then neatly arranges her purchases inside her straw basket, making sure to place the delicate pastries near the top. She mumbles a ‘have a good evening’, but it falls on deaf ears. The three remain invested in this alleged contest, whatever it is, and the feeling of invisibility that their demeanor instills in Angela makes her bitter and agitated.

_Ten proposals? Who is this mystery woman – the queen? Please._

She leaves the bakery with the knowledge that she could have shoplifted, instead. At this hour, the cobbled streets are packed with villagers closing their businesses and making their way home, their sunken eyes and slouched posture a product of a long workday. 

She sticks out from the crowd.

Magic, unlike needlepoint or transcription, leaves its disciples invigorated after eight hours of study, and Angela wears that afterglow in a manner most witches would never dare to. There is a lightness in her step, a confidence in her gaze that makes many of her neighbors turn and stare as she makes her way past them, and yet their frowns melt away once she is out of sight. A simple charm, really, but it goes a long way in preventing the mayor from burning you at the stake.

The sun meets the horizon in the next few minutes, dying the sky coral in a breath-taking spectacle, but Angela will likely see it come back up in twelve hours time. Aware of this, she tries her best to enjoy the walk to her aunt’s cottage. As she nears the edge of the woods, the small shops and public buildings give way to stone houses and residential gardens, to children playing and old couples strolling down the sidewalk, to domestic life and blissful ignorance. The simplicity of it all prompts her to admire the mortals for a moment longer – unlike the city folk, these people don’t seem preoccupied with crime and corruption, and neither are they stressed out over arcane spells or binding rituals.

Speaking of which, Angela forgot to gather the materials her aunt asked for.

_Goddammit_ _._

Making the detour into the forest is not too tiresome, and soon enough she finds herself wandering among the cedar trees. There was rain earlier in the day, leaving the soil beneath her boots soft, the fragrance of the earth and moss still lingering in the humid air. The remnants of sunlight are enough for her to see the forest floor, though with each careful step, her shadows become deeper. She produces small golden shears to snap away a few herbs, a task mindless enough for about a half-hour to go by without Angela taking notice.

Then, the sound of thunder cracks the air.

Thunder, no. Gunfire.

The distant shouts of men confirm her suspicions that there is a hunt taking place. She knows it is not the season for deer, which must mean they are in search of something atypical, and Angela has no plans in staying behind to find out whose head the bounty is upon. She hastily stuffs her pockets with the cut-up rosemary branches, swings her basket over her shoulder, and paces towards the village, ensuring to stay away from the path of any lost bullets. Rain has accumulated on the ground, creating thick puddles of dark mud that clings to her skirts and drags atop her boots, slowing her movements severely enough for a spark of panic to ignite within her chest. 

Another shot rings through, closer than the first. The dense foliage opens up to another meadow, and looking up gives her a glimpse of the moon, which has begun to show on the deepening night sky and casts its reflection on the shallow ponds ahead. Right as she crosses them, water soaking her clothes above the knee, she realizes there is a dark vulture propped on the margin, its form nearly blending with the rocks. Hesitant, she comes closer.

It’s a cat.

The feline is a bit larger than your regular domestic tabby, but the way its ebony fur clings to its skin gives it a scrawny, goblin-like shape. It is unconscious, with its head tucked beneath a paw in what seems to be a self-preserving stance. She walks up to it, and the smell of iron is instantly noticeable to her magically-trained senses. On a regular evening, Angela would not have been one to interfere with the forest’s balance – if this cat had been prey to one of the wolfs, she had no business in negating them their sustenance – but the shouts coming nearer and the foul scent of gunpowder prompt her to hastily mumble a healing incantation. It tugs at her heartstrings with a little more force than she is used to, but in the heat of the moment, Angela pays it no attention. The creature instantly relaxes beneath her touch, a red eye peering up at her. It closes soon after, and she is left with sore muscles and faltering breath.

“It went that way!”, comes the scream from behind her. The grotesque affirmations of a crowd following a leader carry through the air. 

Run. She has to run, now.

_Go!_

In what may very well be a lapse of judgment, Angela cradles the soaked animal to her chest, dragging herself through the water and back into the path.

_Go, now!_

She moves as quickly as she manages, dodging between branches, though despite it all, the ravenous horde feels like a warm breath to her neck.

_Don’t let them catch you!_

The edge of the woods is near – she can hear the chatter of the townspeople.

_Please… Don’t!_

“Fuck, you imbeciles! We lost it!”, swears a rough voice directly to her left. It sends her heart racing through her mouth, and Angela stumbles down to the grass. She manages to scramble behind a fallen trunk before catching a glimpse of one of the hunters. He looks past her, into the darkness, but his hands grasp the weapon with a fury Angela can sense prickling her own skin. His eyes are wild. As if possessed. When he moves too close, she unleashes an invisibility spell, cloaking herself and her rescue in distorted transparency. The barrel of his gun brushes against her bended knee.

A moment passes.

Then another.

And another. She holds her breath. 

He finally moves away, slouching into the bushes where the rest of his companions must be. 

Angela does not wait until he is safely distant before sprinting towards the village. Her panic has left her coated in a layer of cold sweat, and along with her disheveled appearance, it makes for a good reason to keep the invisibility spell active. Anonymity calms her, somehow. 

The crowd has dispersed by this hour, leaving the streets empty save for a few souls who will have to brave the night away, which means that moving without being detected is not too hard of a challenge. Light flows from the windows of the humble houses that line the streets. The provinciality that enraptures the village is certainly comforting to its inhabitants, who are mostly satisfied to be buried essentially in the same place they were born, never having wandered beyond the village gates, but to a woman like Angela, living here can often feel as mind-rotting as counting rice grains. Pointless, she reminds herself, cradling the half-conscious feline to her damp chest. A distant part of her mind prays that it does not carry any diseases.

She makes it to her aunt’s cottage without another scratch, pushing open the enchanted wooden door with her hip and sliding in unnoticed. With her free hand, she removes her boots, discarding them by the entrance, and drops her basket on top of the dinner table. She will separate the magic items from the pastries after she has washed her sour mood away. On the way up to her room, she rummages through a few cabinets for a vial of gold power, a dried leaf, and a big bottle of viscous red liquid. With how silent the house is, her aunt must be out, or at least otherwise preoccupied with damned creatures and blood-bound rituals. Angela figures that if she were here, she would have laughed at her mundane practice, making healing potions like a good little witch. Such thoughts vanish quickly, leaving an acidic aftertaste in the back of her tongue.

With a spare blanket and an empty chest, she fashions a make-shift bed for the black cat, who has only now begun to come to its senses. Its eyes are now alert, glossy, following her every movement with a healthy dose of skepticism. She murmurs a calming incantation, the sort often trusted upon unruly children with a flair for the hysterical, in case the animal decides to put its sharp claws to use. It stiffens beneath her touch, only to fall relaxed a second later.

She works in silence – making conversation with an animal would be insane. Which she is not, to be clear.

And so, with the rustling of the wind outside her bedroom window as the only distraction, she pours out the golden powder into her palm, then crushes the leaf into it, releasing its strong aroma. She adds another powder, salt-like, taken from a tin container perched upon her desk, and mixes it all with a dosage of the red liquid. The layer exposed to the air clots. With the paste formed and her bottom lip caught between her teeth, she searches for the wound hidden in the cat’s fur – it is from a bullet, which appears to have thankfully grazed rather than pierced the skin. A big chunk of muscle is nevertheless missing, and Angela coughs as the potion begins to reconstruct it, the scent of Sulfur and molten iron overtaking the air.

Once she is done, the dried blood is the only indication of the wound ever existing, and the cat is sound asleep in its charming nook. Angela does not pet it. Instead, she undoes the lacing of her bodice and unhooks her skirts, heading out only in her shift to the bathroom downstairs. She finds the bathtub filled with warm, clean water, and soaking in it nearly negates the sticky memory of mud. 

She tries not to think too hard on the quick succession of events that had just taken place. It takes effort for her muscles to finally relax, but it happens. 

Satisfied, at last. 

Her fingers eventually become wrinkled as a cadaver’s, the faint buzz of magic stabbing her skin in a now uncomfortable manner, at which point she pulls herself out of the tub and wraps a soft towel around her body. Her aunt is still not home, so she allows herself to lay stomach down on her bed for a while longer. Sleep doesn’t come, not this early, but the crackling of the fire soothes her into a shallow stasis. It is interrupted by the cat meowing – she swears it sounds incredulous.

Without lifting her cheek from the cotton duvet, she twists her face towards the chest on the ground, and frowns at the feline sitting up among the blankets. When Angela does nothing but stare at it, the cat decides it has healed enough to saunter up to her. It stares back from the foot of the bed. Now that it is clean and healthy, she can see that it is clearly a household pet, not some wildcat who got unlucky in the woods – it looks much too meek and well-behaved to be able to survive on its own, which explains why it was a sitting duck to the hunters. 

She is glad she saved it, Angela determines, though the fact that she has never owned a pet leaves her feeling awkward in the presence of one. Too defeated to dwell on it, she follows its pointed gaze around the room. Its eyes are now a pretty scarlet. She realizes, after being mesmerized for a few seconds by the color, that the cat has been eyeing her very naked body up and down, with an expression that can only mean confusion.

Angela snaps, and swiftly puts on a nightgown. Later, when she is helping her aunt with preparing a curse for one of her clients, she feels silly for the overreaction.

Cats don’t understand the propriety of clothes, after all. Or magic, or language, or any of the things that matter in Angela’s life. They are but creatures running on instinct.

* * *

She sets out a slice of meat and a bowl of milk for the cat to enjoy, then rushes downstairs from where her aunt has been calling for her. The gentle morning sun has gradually given way to the scorching midday rays, which pour in from the many windows that span the cottage’s living room from side-to-side, making Angela squint forcibly to prevent herself from going completely blind.

“Why don’t you ever close the curtains?”, she asks her aunt while marching down the steps. Her voice is still hoarse from sleep, and the words get caught in her throat. Her aunt, being the graceful woman that she is, grunts without looking up from her bubbling cauldron. The entire potion set-up has been brought upstairs and put out on the dining room table, proving to be both an intimidating feat of engineering and a certain safety hazard. Vials of all shapes and sizes are spread around; some contain colorful ingredients – powders, oils, gems and whatnot - while others hold liquids treacherously similar to water. Angela notices a jar filled with a single preserved index finger, and heads for the open kitchen instead.

“Yeah, good morning”, she mumbles, and picks out an apple for her very-late breakfast. She sits on one of the counters, bare feet dangling above ground and mind elsewhere. Today she feels particularly lethargic.

“Don’t mumble, or your spells will come out jagged”, her aunt warns from the other room. “Care to tell me why the entire house smells like cat piss?”

Angela can’t tell whether she is right or not, but it is likely that it is an exaggeration. “I found one injured, down in the forest”. She takes another bite. “Hunters were chasing it down, so I brought it home. I’ll go ask around town later to find the owner.”

She goes in for another bite, but her aunt has materialized beside her in a cloud of dark, leather-scented smoke. The apple falls on the floor, practically eaten. The bite mark is nearly perfect. 

“Hunters?”, she demands. The urgency under her words makes panic bubble up inside Angela. “Who were they?”

“U-uh, some men from the village, I think. Mr. Fletcher’s son nearly hit me with the barrel of his rifle because of the invisibility spell I put up.”

Her answer does not mollify her aunt. Instead, she comes closer to Angela, the red velvet of her robes brushing up against her exposed legs. Arms crossed, her aunt’s hands grip her own skin with steel-grade precision, nearly tearing holes with her sharp nails. Her cerulean eyes meet Angela’s, and her jaw clenches shut.

“Why send a group of hunters to kill a harmless kitten?”, she questions – mostly to herself, though Angela still half-heartedly says: “Maybe they were looking for something else”. In response, her aunt steps back into the living room, but the way her muscles contract when she walks away shows that none of the tension has been released.

“In any case, we’ll have to put up more protection spells around the terrain. And I want you home before sundown, so finish whatever business you have in town quickly.”

It is an order, plain and simple. Angela muses over the words over a cup of tea, and notices how unsettling it is to know that most of the people she spends her days around would sell out her head for a gallon of milk. Her thoughts get involuntarily filled with horror stories from further west – pitchforks, pyres, torture devices – but she chases it away by re-reading her cousins’ letters, the ones from her father’s side of the family. They sound happy, at least. She keeps the meticulously-clipped Dwarven Kingdom stamps from all of them inside a music box.

A few hours later, protected by her favorite crimson-wool cloak, Angela ventures into the village with the unnerving sensation that people are staring at her with ill-intent, as though she had done something so shameful that the entire population had somehow heard about it within a few hours and were ready to descend their judgement upon her, one by one. 

The apothecary is ever as friendly to her when she goes into her shop for the weekly order of reductions, however, and so Angela figures that her aunt’s words have been getting into her head a bit too strongly. 

She thanks the shopkeeper with a warm smile. As she steps outside, using her entire body weight to push the glass door, she notices that the flower-shop has set up a stand in the main square. More than two dozen men have lined up in front of it, and are exchanging hefty amounts of gold for a variety of red and pink bouquets, one more extravagant than the other. The sickly-sweet scent of pollen clings to the air in thick waves, and Angela sneezes three times before she has crossed the square towards one of the residential areas. She finds it very odd. Perhaps there is a celebration she has forgotten about.

The baker had been kind enough to provide her with a rough idea of how many black cats lived in the village and whom they belonged to. Three of the families lived in the center of the village, which was where she was headed, and the last one was across town, near the north edge of the forest.

And so, with a map traced inside her head for maximum efficiency, Angela knocked door-to-door and inquired about a missing pet. In the first house, a young schoolboy opened the door with a tiny kitten struggling in his grasp, so the conversation went rather quickly. In the next, an old man went back upstairs just to check that his sleeping companion had not slipped through the window crack (again). The last house on the street had a dog, not a cat.

A task that was meant to be simple had proven to be too complex and wholesome for her liking, leading Angela to hex, out of pure annoyance, a woman who didn’t move out of the way when walking. No guilt came after the realization. The quarter-hour walk towards the opposite side of the village is filled with thoughts of summertime, rather than dwelling on the week she has very possibly ruined. As she walks up the stone paths, she notices a few young men trailing behind her, all carrying armfuls of flowers upon flowers. She doesn’t think much of it until she catches one of their gazes – brown eyes too sharp for a sheep-like devotee. Angela keeps looking over her shoulder the rest of the way.

The north houses lay on the hilltop. They are large and extravagant, with lush gardens and iron gates, but mostly they are lonely. Spread out from each other, the concept of a neighbor is hardly applicable to such distances. Angela finds the notion of empty luxury tempting.

She lags behind as the men move past her and up to one of the houses. Black roof, marble finish on the walls, like the baker had described. The front of it is covered by a dense, though well-kept garden, and she can only guess the men have delivered the flowers once they walk back down towards the village, hands empty. She lingers for a second longer before deciding to step into the front garden, pushing the iron gate open with only the tips of her fingers. 

Once inside, she notices that countless bouquets have been placed along the grass, creating an entire spectrum of the local flora that is, most of all, absurd. Loose petals form a carpet that crunches beneath her heels. She has never seen so many flowers in one place – not in open fields, weddings, or even a funeral. However much they have cost must be enough to put the entire village through another year, if not more. If this is a display of devotion, as she initially thought, then it is nearing the point of morbid obsession. Angela chokes on the flowers’ perfume. With the sky covered in clouds, the lack of sunlight paints everything a bit more gray, leaving the scenery more eerie than what she is comfortable with. 

The bouquets more resemble a pool of semi-congealed blood. Past the roses and chrysanthemums, their scent clinging to her lungs, Angela strolls along a stone path towards the front door. In order to reach it, she kicks a pile of blooms to the side. Her hands tremble. She knocks once, then twice. No response. She turns her chin up, looking at the windows, and sees that all curtains around the house have been closed. 

One last knock, and she gives up on her search. 

However, perhaps due to the remnants of her childish curiosity, she walks around the flower graveyard towards the back garden, finding it much more agreeable. There are no flowers – only a large oak tree and moss-covered rocks overseeing a humble brook. Angela can imagine herself sitting up against the tree’s trunk, with a cup of tea in one hand and her grimoire in the other, the golden light of the afternoon warming her skin up. She imagines she would feel safe, here, being so far away from the rest of the world. The daydream distracts her. 

“You called for me?”, demands a voice from behind her. Stricken by surprise, Angela has but a fleeting thought of burning firewood before snapping around to face a woman. 

She is tall, regal to the effect that looking up at her draws the breath away from Angela’s lungs, with sharp features akin to the goddesses of war immortalized in poems, and lips that curl proudly at the corners. Angela is drawn to beauty, unsurprisingly, but using such a word to describe this woman would roll off the tongue in the completely wrong way.

“I… Um…”

Angela’s speech comes out staggered. She can’t remember what her business was; why her throat itches from the musk of decay; why the clouds are painting such a grim picture. It isn’t that the stranger’s mere appearance has seduced her into stupidity, though that would be a romantic tale. Rather, what leaves her staring is that there is something off-putting underneath every single perfect thing about the woman. Dangerous. It is the same gut-twisting feeling of facing your own reflection in a dream. Angela clutches the hem of her hood. She stares at piercing blue eyes, but the color that flashes in the back of her mind is red.

“Yes, I did”. Angela straightens herself out, and the woman watches her with intrigue. “I’m Angela. Yesterday I found a lost cat in the woods, and was told that it might be yours”. Rather than relieved or confused, the woman seems slightly amused, nodding into her gloved hand.

“A black cat, correct? It must be my Oscar”. Angela perks up at the confirmation, holding onto the fact that she had not wasted her day as an excuse to push all her other conflicting emotions down. 

“Black, yes”, she answers, “She?... She must have gotten hurt by one of the forest animals, but she healed well. I’ll be happy to bring her to you tomorrow morning”. Mentioning the hunters feels unnecessary, so Angela opts for a reviewed truth.

The woman ponders over the offer, attention fixated on Angela, who has begun to run her hands over a loose strand of hair to try to contain the sudden burst of unstable magical energy. She lets out a deep sigh. “Would you like to come in for tea?”

The invitation is not a direct response to what Angela has said, but despite the misdirection, she finds it genuine enough to accept. When she answers ‘yes’ and they head inside, Angela can nearly see the tension melt away from the woman’s aura, even though she never seemed to hold any to begin with. She looks over her shoulder at the flowers piled up outside, and her nose scrunches in disdain before she closes the door behind Angela. 

The inside of the house is just as elegant as the outside, if not a bit impersonal. Angela would guess that the furniture came with it, from how everything is fashioned in pale, neutral tones. The lack of servants, at least at a glance, seems unusual. The woman leads her to a high-ceilinged living room, and offers Angela a seat while she fetches them a drink. Angela waits by looking at the many paintings that cover the wallpapered walls, taking in the oil-pointed landscapes by wondering where the references are located, and whether she will ever have a chance to visit any of them.

“Do you take it with sugar?”, the woman questions as she walks back in, a silver tray containing fine porcelains balanced delicately on her hands. She sets it down on the table and takes a seat across from Angela, never deviating her attention from her guest. Angela notices a bit too late that maybe her host is the one who sees her as a threat, that maybe her sins do trail behind her like a badly-chosen perfume, as her aunt had warned. Angela stirs in her seat.

“Just plain, thank you.”

“Oh”. There is a small smile upon the woman’s lips. Innocent or condescending? Angela can’t tell for certain. “That makes it two of us, then. There you go”. She stretches over the table to hand Angela the cup, and as she returns to an upright position, she flinches. Her hand goes to her ribs.

“Are you alright?”, Angela asks, more out of politeness than real concern. The woman seems apologetic about her sudden lack of composure, though Angela finds it unnecessary.

“Yes, quite so. I just happened to slip and injure myself when moving some of the furniture around, last week. It’s nothing to be concerned about.”

From how the woman has clenched her teeth and spat out her words, Angela would wager that she must be lying. Not that it’s any of her business, after all, but her recent altruistic streak lures her into patting down the pockets of her cloak. She finds the small bottle she had been searching – cork-capped, filled with a dark brown liquid. Thankfully this potion is not too on the nose about containing virgin blood. She offers it to the woman, who seems taken aback.

“This should be able to reduce any left-over bruising. A spoonful every day does the trick more often than not.”

The woman reaches for the bottle, and her cold skin sends a shiver down Angela’s spine when their fingers brush past one another. Too cold. The same amusement washes over her face, and this time Angela almost finds it patronizing.

“How kind of you. I take it that you are the local doctor’s daughter?”

_Doctor? Sure._

“Her niece, actually. I am training as her apprentice, since none of the… _Medical schools_ would take me in.”

“ _Hm_ , schools and their ever so medieval standards. I am quite familiar with them”. Her voice slips into a deeper timbre, raspy as a whisper, and Angela is suddenly aware of how warm her cloak is.

“I do appreciate your kindness, miss. If I may, I am afraid I have one more favor to ask of you.”

The woman pauses, looking out the window.

_Were the curtains not closed?_

“Yes?”, coaxes Angela. The woman looks straight back at her.

“Have you seen the flowers outside?”. At that, Angela nearly laughs. “They’re quite hard to miss, ma’am.”

“I wasn’t expecting such a passionate welcome when I decided to move into this village. To be honest, I was hoping to disappear for a while. To… Have a moment to recollect my thoughts, without having the world knocking at my door with every chance it has”. She stands up, pacing around the room in a contemplative state. 

“Half the village seems in love with you”, Angela points out. Not that she blames them. The woman grimaces. 

“Not by choice, I assure you”, she explains, “In fact, their unrequited attention has become a grave problem. _I have no peace_.”

Angela feels sympathetic – she would have set the bouquets on fire the second they landed on her property.

“So, as a last resort to find myself some space, I came up with a contest. Surely you have heard of it.”

Angela vaguely recalls the conversation she overheard the previous day, when she was fetching her pastries. She nods. The woman is now standing behind her, hands placed on the carved frame of the armchair.

“It seemed like a good idea, at the time. To promise my hand to whoever manages to take the pearl from my cat’s name tag, when I knew nobody would be fast or intelligent enough to accomplish so. The condition was that they wouldn’t bother me in the meantime”, she explains.

From what she recalls, the cat was no longer wearing a nametag. She reasons it must have fallen out during the scuffle, back in the woods. 

“I expected it would all die down within a couple of days, a week at most, but then those imbeciles took it upon themselves to hunt m- _my precious pet_ down. She isn’t safe here, not until I brainstorm another solution.”

Angela sets down her cup and turns to face the woman. Her breath, smoke-scented, falls lightly on Angela’s cheeks.

“You want me to keep her, I assume?”

“For a short time. You will be compensated for your trouble, of course, but I would be more than happy to offer more if you need to be convinced.”

Money is power, and Angela never refuses power. “Twenty-five gold pieces a week, and ten more if she ever scratches me”, she says, and this time the woman smiles widely. A wolf’s smile, or a panther’s.

“It is a deal, then.”

Angela offers the woman her hand, but rather than shaking it, she brings it to her rosy lips and places a chaste kiss upon her knuckles. She has never seen any gentleman perform a similar gesture with such charm, and the contraposition of the act with the woman’s appearance pleases Angela. Later, she will reflect on it fondly.

They finish their tea without much conversation. After, the woman leads Angela to the door. The goodbyes are quick, and it is only when she is once again alone that Angela realizes she never asked for the woman’s name – not that she bothered to tell her. She begins her walk back towards the village, the clouds darkening above her. She mindlessly picks a stray rose from the pavement. The red petals are easily crushed in her grasp. It is very faint, nearly imperceptible, but traces of magic bleed away on her palm. Angela turns one last time towards the house, thinking of the woman inside, of the admirers chasing her like helpless pilgrims, of the cat inside her bedroom. 

She wonders if the sickly scent is not a byproduct of foul play.

Rain pours down. By the time Angela makes it home, she is once again soaked to the bone, yet much warmer than before.

* * *

Sleep comes in waves. Unconnected snips of conscience placed in-between the darkness. The warmth of her blankets proves too restraining, while the breeze slipping through the junctions of her windows feels like frost upon her bare skin, and she tosses and turns more times than she has the energy to count. Her night goes by in restlessness. At one point, between flashes of dreams, a heavy weight places itself upon her chest. A firm, though gentle, compression. Rather than open her eyes, Angela counts to ten. 

She feels hot, humid air against her face. Whatever it is, it is matching the rhythm of her breaths.

She wonders if she is suffering from paralysis, if every corporeal sensation is not the mere product of her active, anxious imagination. If she were to stay still, would it all disappear? Only one way to tell for sure, but the prickling on her fingertips and the accelerated pace of her heart could be just as easily caused by the energy flowing through her body – by her magic conversing with one not of her own. 

Tired, and a bit disoriented, she opens one of her eyes, peeking from beneath heavy lids straight into a mismatched gaze. Red and blue, right in front of her nose. A monster’s eyes. 

Angela sits up on her bed, and finds her room filled with nothing but shadows. Her gasps echo in the silence of the night. The blanket lays tossed by the foot of the bed, though her skin, exposed by the light fabric of her nightgown, nears a feverish temperature.

Moonlight shines in. The cat watches intently from across the room.

* * *

A fortnight later, her pockets are filled with coins and her basket is stuffed with packages to be delivered. She flies as high as she can, turning the tip of her broom up and up, until she bursts through the lower clouds and achieves some sort of cover from nosy bystanders. Angela really enjoys flying – the freedom to come and go wherever she pleases, the wind wild against her hair, the danger of death dependent on how certain she is of her movements. Flying sets her apart from the mortals. It is a very tangible reminder of who she is meant to be.

Oscar is curled up against her stomach, attention fixated on the world zooming past underneath them. Her aunt had not been keen on Angela bringing the cat along for the deliveries, specially due to how much they were being paid to watch over it, but it is impossible to argue with an animal who has become attached. Oscar is always lingering close to Angela, passively coexisting whilst exercising the same caution one would when observing rare birds or carrying a just-asleep newborn. She is never loud, never crawling on surfaces not meant to support human bodies, and never away from where she was supposed to be.

She doesn't meow anymore, either, opting to stand close whatever she deems needs attention at the moment – a bottle too near the table’s edge, or maybe a candle about to run out of wick. Angela is inexperienced when it comes to owning a pet, and even so she can’t imagine they would normally behave as oddly as this one. 

The cat appears well-versed on the notions of personal space. She hasn’t been near her aunt ever since Angela had rescued her, and most she ever did was watch from a respectable distance. However, once or twice, when Angela had been alone with her in her bedroom, Oscar had shown herself to be a little more approachable. She would stand closer than usual, or simply lay down and wait for Angela to extend her hand. Only then would she move within reach. Petting seemed the right thing to do, Angela thought, but Oscar was not one to purr at her tender touch.

Nevertheless, soaring through the sky, she seems content enough to be held.

The next delivery, the last of a long list, is one Angela has been waiting for a long while. They fly towards the coast, where the breeze is heavy with salt and the scent of the mango trees. She sees the water taking over the horizon. Sunshine reflects off the teal waves, and she has to squint in order to locate her destination amongst the vast expanses of land. 

She gets down in an unkempt garden – nature has reclaimed most of the opulence once placed upon it, with the exception of the imposing marble statue at the center of it, the depiction of a goddess Angela does not know, but who clearly was above from becoming a support for vines and moss. The ruins of the Chateau, an old, regal building larger than anything Angela has ever seen, are located not far from it. She enters through an arched door, stepping into thick mist and shadows. Oscar is unphased and follows Angela right into it.

As soon as they reach the other side, the impression is that they have fallen into a completely different world. As opposed to the decay and abandonment left outside, the interior of the estate is primly decorated with gold and silver. Mirrors line the hallway walls from side to side, creating the idea of a maze filled with innate enchantments, like a mythical location meant to hold a rare artifact or an imprisoned beast. The sounds of chatter are heard from nearby. Having been here more than enough times, Angela knows to take a left and march down to the study, where the recipient of the packages will likely be waiting for her. 

She finds the Countess draped languidly on the _chaise longue_ , reading a book in a foreign language, eyes darting back and forth over the pages. She looks up the moment Angela steps in.

“Ange!”, she exclaims, sitting up to greet her. She does not walk up to Angela as much as she glides closer, the hems of her gown dragging behind her with the same opacity of tinted glass, except for the fading at the edges. One of the servants wanders in immediately to retrieve the book, then floats up to place it at the correct location on the alphabetized shelves ahead of disappearing into thin air. Her form is still concrete, though, much more than the servant’s, and she leans in to place a cold kiss on each of Angela’s cheeks. The touch lingers for a moment, and Angela smiles at her.

“I am glad to find you in a good mood, my lady. I assume preparations for the All Hallow’s Eve celebration have begun?”.

The Countess wraps an arm around her, bringing them to take a seat. Another servant comes in and pours them both a glass of wine, produced in the vineyard a few kilometres from the estate. They don’t drink, not yet. Oscar is sat by the door, but Angela’s mind is too fixated elsewhere to pay her any attention.

“The same as every year. I shall have your invitation sent within a week”, answers the Countess. Her accent is typical for the region, but the manner in which she rolls her r’s, or the way some syllables die at the end of her words, or sometimes just the occasional term from her mother language thrown into her phrases are exciting, even if done a thousand times over.

“Now, I see you have not come empty-handed…”. Angela takes it as her cue to bring out her basket. She places the assortment of items on the central table – a potion for heartbreak, a few mirrors for long-distance calls, and two resurrection stones for each of the servants that tend the property. The Countess trails her fingers over the items, their magical nature always a discovery to someone born human, then brought into her world by force.

Angela then takes out a smaller leather bag from one of her pockets, filled with an equal amount of the scintillating stones. She would have placed it on the Countess’ palm, but afraid that it would fall through, she opts for laying it between them on the sofa.

“You always outdo yourself, _chérie._ ”

“Wait, I have one last thing”, Angela warns, and unties the rope bracelet she had been wearing. The craftsmanship of it is not impressive, just something she had been able to procure for a few coins, but it serves the purpose. She reaches for the Countess’ left arm. She doesn’t press too hard on her skin, lest it break from her touch, yet still manages to wrap the bracelet around her pale blue wrist. The Countess watches, mesmerized.

“This is just a prototype. I’m sure I can find a piece more suitable for you once I nail down the details of the enchantment. Still, this should allow you to take a fully-corporeal form for a few hours. To breathe, to feel the sun, even go outside the bounds of the Chateau, should you wish.”

The Countess is not one to express flamboyant emotions – the chromium-bound restraints of death weigh down on all spirits who did not cross the veil, and so everything about her, from appearance to personality, is expressed with self-contained poise. Always aware, always an effort. Angela imagines it must be maddening to exist in such a state, and so she takes a great interest in mingling with the dearly, nearly-departed. Professional curiosity, one may call it. Nevertheless, the Countess’ purple-tainted lips curl up in a slight grin.

“Who did you have to kill in order to make this work?”. She means it as a joke, obviously, so Angela does not tell her about the little boy. Her aunt had left him dry, anyways. She will work on a less… _expensive_ method once she sorts out the basics.

“To activate the spell, you must say _‘cauchemar’_. It’s single-use, though, so be careful not to burn it all up on a gloomy afternoon.”

She answers a bit too quickly, and suddenly golden eyes narrow at her. 

“Hmm… To waste away in the sun… Tempting, true, but surely there are better uses for your magic?”

Ah, there it is. The suggestion. The proposition. _The opportunity._

_Would it be too selfish to agree? To ask a ghost to throw away a few hours of freedom from an excruciating existence and dedicate them to her, instead?_ Angela holds her tongue rather than responding right away.

_Then again, would it not be more than fair?_

She knows where the Countess’ final resting place is because she has seen it, up in the master bedroom. Seen _her_ , and all the other skeletons down by the wine cellars. Most importantly, it was Angela who delivered the ashes of her bastard of a husband in a little jam jar. Back then, she hadn’t thought of the Countess as selfish for asking her to stand in the middle of the forest, at midnight, with a paralyzing draught coursing through her veins. It had been just a favor, to offer herself as bait. To drag his lifeless body to the meadows. To sit beneath a tree while her body rid itself violently of the potion she had consumed, while the dawning light reduced him to flames and dust. Just another job for one of her most loyal customers. 

_Would a cure from loneliness not be an adequate payment for all she has done? Hasn’t that always been the case, between them two?_

The cat is still standing by the door. Angela can’t seem to shake her gaze away.

She grabs the Countess’ hand. Firmly, for once, without fear of chasing her back to the netherworld.

* * *

When she does return home, two-thirds of the way through the night, her aunt immediately complains about the scent of withered flowers that clings to her skin. Angela shuts her up by handing her the container of vampire ashes she was given.

“A peace offering”, the Countess had said. Her kiss of goodbye was the least tangible thing she had offered Angela that night.

Oscar had also been skittish since their return. Angela tries to lift her from her pillows, since she refused to move otherwise, and the cat hisses at her for the first time. She manages to pry her away, and is left with two scratches along her arm. Angry, bleeding claw marks, too violent for what, so far, appeared to be a demure domestic pet.

Funnily enough, she goes to sleep thinking about Oscar’s owner, the mysterious woman of contests and bouquets. When she wakes up, the scratch marks are gone, along with all other bruises.

* * *

She has her first free day in over a month, and rather than lay in bed and look up at the ceiling, she decides to take a trip to a nearby lake. In the early morning, the colors bleed from orange, to gold, and then to green. There had been plans to convert the area into a botanical garden, in hopes of perhaps attracting some tourists to the region. A few volunteers had even begun to plant different varieties of herbs, but it all fell through when the new mayor decided to pocket their hard-earned money instead. Now, all that remains are a handful of stone benches thrown around the shore, which Angela forgoes for sitting down under a tree, in the shade. She flicks to an empty page in her grimoire, the one she had left dog-eared from when she was working on her previous notes, and begins to scribble down new rune patterns with her trusty quill. 

The villagers rarely come to this place, which is precisely the reason she has chosen it.

Being by herself is not as relaxing as she had hoped it would be, she quickly realizes. She suddenly thinks of her parents. It doesn’t happen often, not anymore. And, when it does, when the faint recollection of their faces flashes unprompted in front of her eyes, she is swift to push any intruding thoughts down. Twenty years had come and gone. Her mother would have been… what? Fifty-one, she guesses. Her father must have been of a similar age, but she doesn’t remember his year of birth, only that his birthday fell in the fall. It could be today, for all she knew. They died too young, more so in witch than in mortal terms. She wonders if not honoring their birthdays, or the anniversary of their deaths, or even their work, simple as it might have been, makes her a bad daughter. 

But she kept their craft - that must count for something.

After their execution, she made no promises of revenge. Young as she was, back then, she was well-aware that going after the mortals who had lit the pyre would only send her to an equally-early grave. Instead, she had sworn to make herself useful. She would use her gift to offer power to those who had none. She would create heroes.

Not become one.

However, as the years go by, and her magic grows stronger, she begins to question if that too is the wrong goal to pursue. Most often than not, it feels like self-sabotage. Her quill falls flat on the page, splattering ink.

“Hello there.”

She looks up. The mysterious woman stands above her. Angela closes her grimoire a little too harshly.

“Hi.”

The woman looks much healthier than before. Well, physically she appears much the same – her hair has been fashioned into an elaborate twirl to better fit with her wide-brimmed hat, and her clothes are long and severe to protect her from the sun, but she looks as porcelain-like as she had before. It is the energy flowing around her that no longer is as bitter and chalk-like. The recovery essence must have worked as intended, leaving Angela pleased when she notices.

“I must confess, I didn’t count on finding anyone else here. Not at this hour”. She comes closer. “And yet, it seems that fate is on my side - I have been eager to meet with you again”, the woman says. Having her back turned to the lake, she is mostly cast in shadows, which are made more severe by the fact that Angela’s pupils contract to prevent the morning brightness from burning away her retina. It makes it particularly hard to make out the expression on her face.

Angela thinks for a second, then answers. “I… Would have to agree, weirdly enough. Care to take a seat?”

Gathering her heavy skirts, she sits down awkwardly to Angela’s left. She looks very odd against the background, here in nature, as though she were more fit for theater and opera in lieu of the savage whims of the outside world. Angela is surprised she allowed herself to touch the ground at all. That is why it comes as a grand surprise that, when an emerald beetle crawls in front of them, the woman picks it up and places it on her long finger.

“I don’t think I have personally seen such a species in the wild before”, the woman lilts. “Fascinating, isn’t it?”

Angela licks her lips to distract from how they had fallen open. Then, taking herself off-guard, she begins to explain. “Their exoskeletons have very prominent medicinal properties. If you crush them to a powder and toast it, you can create a solution to help with brain fog, or help ease dementia. I read that…”

Deep down she knows she shouldn’t babble about her studies with mortals, but she realizes that the woman is listening. Actually listening. Not the half-assed nod-and-hum every few seconds her aunt has the habit of doing, or the confused smile the townspeople resort to during the rare conversation, before excusing themselves to an urgent appointment and letting her words die back down into silence. Not even the Countess seemed to manage to follow along whenever she got excited about her magic, or whatever tiny portion of it she was allowed to share. And yet, by some irony of the universe, this stranger understood.

Understood so well that, when Angela finishes her little lecture, she adds: “And it is a crucial ingredient of the werewolf-bite antidote, but I’m sure you knew that.”

She did. How could she not? It was one of the first antidotes taught by any decent potions master. She had prepared it so many times, she could tell the emerald fragments apart simply by running them between her thumb and index fingers. This was not, however, knowledge humans were privy of, even if they were ones who dedicated their lives to hunting witches down.

Angela flinches, and the beetle flies away.

“Who are you?”, she asks, more indignantly than she intended. The woman is not offended by it.

“You may call me Moira, though I prefer to keep this name away from mortal mouths”, she says it with a smile. Her tone has completely shifted. Elegant, still, but dripping with power and danger. Angela narrows her gaze. “And what are you?”, she presses.

“To that I have many answers, darling witch. For privacy’s sake, I’ll simply confess that I am a sorceress – a student of the craft, much like you.”

Sorcerers, those whose power comes from patronage rather than from within. Their magic is potent, destructive, and mostly unethical. It is also alluring, alluring in all of the ways Angela cannot ignore.

“I find it hard to believe that a sorceress would end up at a place like this”, Angela says with a scoff.

“Ask me a year ago and I would have thought the same. And yet, it seems that reassessing your beliefs is a healthy practice”. She sighs, and Angela feels their knees brushing through the fabric as she inhales and exhales. “I have found myself in quite the predicament, and it turns out none of my solutions have lived up to the task. I’ve begun to run out of ideas.”

She sounds honest, if her words have any value at their core. Angela shifts to face her. Even sitting down, the sorceress towers above her, and Angela has to tilt her chin up in order to meet her steely gaze.

“So you come to a witch for help? Most would say that is unwise.”

She states it with a whisper. Low, accusatory, and almost teasing _. 'Moira’_ pushes back. “Is it?”, she coos, and Angela has to frown.

“Very much so.”

It may sound matter-of-factually, yet a grin manages to slip upon her lips and eyes. “I wouldn’t have to move a finger to turn you into an old hag. Or a slimy frog, if you angered me a certain way.”

“I might let you”, Moira says, amused. “I would certainly get some peace of mind, if anything else.”

Though they are humoring each other, Angela’s mind is darting back to the village, and suddenly things begin to fall into place. Men proposing to a strange woman who had never even left her house. Flowers to be delivered day and night. Lost stares, taciturn walks, aggressive bursts. Hunters foaming with bloodlust towards a domestic cat, throwing themselves at a silly contest clearly rigged against their favor.

Shallow love, nearing-obsession. A sickly scent.

“ _Oh_ … You’re carrying a love spell, am I correct?”

Moira’s face drops, and her teeth clench in disgust. Her skin takes a grayish tone. Simply talking about the subject seems enough to bring her near to nausea.

“Yes”, she says it as if admitting defeat, then continues. “It was placed upon me by a former lover, as a form of revenge. She tailored it so that my own magic would not be able to break it, that lunatic bitch, and no other wielder has been able to help me so far.”

_She_. The pronoun sticks to her mind more than any of the information that followed suit. More than the hatred slipping from Moira’s presence, thick and sticky as honey when poured over a smooth surface, crystalizing at the edges. Angela is holding her grimoire with a bit more force now. She does not care that her knuckles have gone white, nor that her nails are leaving dents on the leather cover.

“And you think that I could help you?”, she snorts, feeling stupid to even ask it out loud. A spell of such caliber would never cave to a single witch’s magic. Hell, she doubts her entire coven would be able to do it, given what she has seen. Moira must have cheated on a goddess to warrant such anger.

“You might be the only one capable enough to try. After all, necromancy is not for the weak of soul.”

_Silly_. She’s only prodding, trying to get a reaction, but it still leaves Angela choking on air. She stands up at once, her vision going dark from the sudden lack of blood.

“I am just a healer”, she says very slowly. Remaining calm proves to be a challenge.

_She doesn’t know what she is talking about._

_Sorcerers lie._

_She most definitely does._

_She must lie so much, her entire magical footprint is distorted by it._

“Are you sure about that?”

Moira’s words are sweet, quiet, meant to soothe. To Angela, unfortunately, they are as unpleasant as burnt coffee and expired milk.

“Yes.”

_No._

“A cat doesn’t survive a bullet wound, dear witch. You and I both know how death lingers in the air. We can feel it, even now”, Moira argues, both patient and manipulative. Angle ignores her, staring at the still waters of the lake, or pretending to.

Magic is a death penalty among mortals. Necromancy is one among witches. She would be prosecuted by both, if not others, if she were to pursue her talents.

Decidedly, Angela steps closer to the shore. The clear water washes over her feet, soaking through her riding boots and drenching the hem of her skirt, yet the sensation does not offer her the clarity she had hoped for.

“To be burdened with a love spell… I wouldn’t wish that upon my worst enemy, sorceress. But I’m not a miracle worker, or a charitable person, nor do I attempt to be either”, she says, and her words come out kinder than intended. She tells herself it is to soften the disappointment. Perhaps there is a part deep inside her, a part chained to dungeon walls along the row of all her repressed urges and desires, that is relieved to be finally accused of all the crimes she worked so hard to commit.

Witch.

Death-chaser.

Necromancer.

It is her self-respect that keeps her from drinking up the validation. Then again, there is always the loud, beating need to prove useful. To take on the challenge and exceed expectations.

_Fuck._

They are barely even acquaintances, and Angela already wants to please her. To hurt, only to heal twice the amount of damage she inflicted. She looks over her shoulder. All around the sorceress the rays of light deviate from their path. She’s drenched in magic, the sort that is used to disguise evil, twisted, brilliant minds. Angela tells herself that is the reason she won’t cave in. Never mind that it is a lie.

“You should look for salvation elsewhere.”

When her physical form begins to dissipate, white clouds taking over her silhouette and being carried away by the wind, she thinks about confessing that she is sorry – sorry that she is such a contradictory being; too much of a coward to help, too brave to let go – but claiming that aloud would drive her to do everything she knows she is not supposed to.

“You may have the right to neglect your talents, witch, but you would be stupid to do so.”

They cross gazes one last time. Angela does not find the disappointment she had expected. Instead, there is a knowing smile gracing her features, as if she knew Angela better than herself. She returns home, an unnamed ache blocking her throat, stinging her muscles and eyes.

She spends the rest of the day in bed, curled up beneath the bed sheets. Oscar rests safely wrapped around her arms, brushing up against her chest, and maybe it is because of it that she can’t seem to chase the sorceress away from her thoughts. The question of what she desperately tries to hide beneath her enchantment lingers in the air, as well as the identity of who had very well cursed her. Angela pictures any woman, but ends up seeing herself. Then the village men come to mind, and though she may not be able to break the love spell, she is sure that she could poison the entire village, if it came to it.

Would the sorceress care, if she did? Angela doubts it.

Perhaps it is for the best that the collar got lost in the woods, the shiny pearl along with it, not to be found by any mortal. Jealousy stirs when it shouldn’t. Thinking of the contest, she finds herself feeling sorry for whoever retrieves the pearl, and in her chest sprouts a sensation that is green and acidic.

Would she claim the prize, if she were the one to find it?

The answer is frightening. She runs her knuckles along the soft fur, and falls asleep to the cat’s quiet snores.

* * *

A month later, they run into each other at the bookshop. Angela hears the doorbell chime when she steps in, and despite having her back turned to the entrance, she can tell immediately that it is the sorceress who has arrived by how difficult it becomes difficult to inhale. The children who had been raking the dead leaves outside the shop fall silent as she walks in. She is coated in spells. So many that the air around her is clogged in them. Angela realizes that it is partially her fault, that she must hide like this.

She _could_ help.

When the sorceress trails closer to the shelves she had been perusing, Angela takes a sudden interest in ‘A Gentleman’s Guide to Grooming – Second Edition’.

_Ground-breaking work, Mr. Henry Helligan, just brilliant._

Alas, not brilliant enough to turn her invisible at a moment’s notice.

_Shit._

Moira walks up to where she is standing. Angela braces herself for biting remarks, but the sorceress does not say anything. Instead, she silently pulls out a copy of the book Angela had actually come here for – _The Annual Medical Almanac, Revisited_ – then another for herself. With reading materials on magic being banned from publication, it’s the closest thing to it one can get without it being contraband, but the fact that she guessed correctly is still impressive.

“Oh, I didn’t take you as a woman who wasted her time on such uncultured text”, she teases, but only because it is the first thing that comes to mind that is not entirely inappropriate.

_She can’t mind-read, can she? Heavens, she hopes not._

Moira’s lips twist into a smile. “Anything to chase off the brain rot, don’t you agree?”. She plucks another two books from the next bookshelf over, in the fiction section. Angela peeks at the covers as she sets them into a neat pile. She recognizes the name of the author. Oscar. The cat must have been named after him. 

“Wasn’t he imprisoned for being a sodomite?”, she blurts, and crosses her fingers that her joke won’t come off as ill-intended. She releases a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding when Moira chuckles, the sound deep and raspy.

“Well, it isn’t like I can easily head outside, so I must make do with what I can, at home.”

That Angela knows of better things to do when behind closed doors remains unsaid.

* * *

For a while, she pretends the sorceress does not exist. She goes on her days as normal, does whatever her aunt asks of her, and acts as if the black cat who brushes against the back of her legs is her familiar, and not someone else’s. But it does not last for long. Slowly, gradually, she feels the inner gears of her magic twist around, along with her morals. One evening, she finds a yellow canary crumpled on the grass, dead from a flight cut short. She cradles the creature in her hands and brings it back.

It flies away happily. 

She tells herself she had only mended a broken wing, but it eventually becomes difficult (and insulting) to pass all the miracles off as mediocre healing spells. The body of a deer, missing the head. A grown wolf, already into the process of decomposition, its torso split into two by the claws of a creature Angela would not defy in her wildest dreams. Even a stillborn baby, which she then had to leave at the priest’s doorstep. Each and every one a task above anything a witch of her experience would deign to attempt. All a fucking success, too.

Winter comes and goes.

Just as gradually as she proves her magic above death, the sorceress proves herself above Angela’s restraints. Along with the gold coins she sends in exchange of hospitality, there begin to appear trinkets of persuasion, gifts both too personal and too priceless to attribute to generosity. When a bouquet of lilies is delivered to her door, Angela understands that Moira is sadistic. That she is taking out her frustrations by paying Angela the same diseased attention the love spell had delivered upon her. It is desperate, and Angela tells her so.

“What are you on about?”, is what she answers, satisfaction flooding her words. She stretches her fingers. The crack of thunder roars above them, despite the sky above the forest having been clear seconds ago. Then, without faltering, a large bird crashes from above and into the ground next to where they agreed to meet. Its neck had broken cleanly to the side. Angela exchanges a look with Moira, then huffs. She can feel her skin flushing above her neckline.

“You are barbaric!”, she exclaims, already kneeling by the animal’s corpse. The chant comes easily to her, improvised, and the palms of her hands glow with a blinding yellow, lighting up this corner of the woods. She found out that she doesn’t need to drain lifeforce from a single target, not necessarily. If she focuses enough, she can take energy from all around her, then amplify the outcome by passing it through her own magic. A perfect cycle, without losses. Angela barely works up a sweat when resurrecting, now, as long as death hasn’t settled in too deeply. 

There is an audible sound when the bones mend themselves. The bird crosses back to the other side of the veil, wings thrashing around violently, and the grass becomes covered in lost feathers. She moves out of the way before getting hit, and ends up stumbling back against the sorceress. The apology dies on her tongue. Moira, usually so composed and aloof, stumbles over her words at the sudden physical contact. She steps aside, almost timorously.

“You are a brilliant witch, _Angela_ ”, she says after quickly recovering. The praise makes Angela feel warm, but a deep shadow suddenly falls upon them both. Moira sighs, frustrated. “If only the world could see the wonders that magic is able to accomplish…”

The spark vanishes almost instantly, and Angela shivers from the cold.

She knows most of the pieces of the puzzle are missing. Knows she should not be affected this badly by a stranger. They have met only a handful of times, and all their conversations seem to amount to the supernatural, half of them ending with Angela spitting curses under her breath while Moira watches with the same frozen poise with which one observes a child throwing a tantrum. Every time Angela thinks she has earned her respect, Moira treats her as if she is merely offering a service. Throw her some coins, get her a gift, move on. They haven’t exchanged anything meaningful. Angela does not know her last name, or her age, or even what language she slips into when common expressions fail their purpose. Angela is convinced she doesn’t know so much as what she really looks like, since she must be omitting that as well, burying it along with all other vulnerable information meant to form a connection.

Angela would say she felt taken advantage of, except that is not true. After all, she could strip down naked and lay on the soft moss of the forest, and the sorceress would do no more than excuse herself politely and walk away in disinterest. And that is what drives Angela mad.

Moira is enthralling. She takes on the world by its fragments and rebuilds it as her own. She is intelligent, yes, but beyond the knowledge she accumulated there is a passion burning in scarlet reds. Hide as she may from whatever is chasing her, her sense of self remains solid as an armor, and she exists without fear of punishment, be it from God or anything below It. She shows not who she is – only herself. It all makes her a stranger, in the true meaning of the word. Unknown and untrustworthy.

Moira is a stranger, and Angela is already in love with her.

Because, deep down, Angela wants to be wanted - to be needed and desired in all the decadent ways mortal women are often tired of experiencing. To be held through the night and be kissed hard despite her magic – not because of it. Not a remedy. Not a service. Not a means to an end. For her love to be more than a cure for loneliness. 

_And they would be perfect together, wouldn’t they?_

_If only she were the right person._

_She never is._

She hadn’t fathomed that all this time, the cracking sounds echoing at night had been of her frail heart, giving into the crushing pressure of a life led in servitude towards others.

“Good night, sorceress.”

She leaves before hearing Moira’s reaction. Outside, the last snowfall settles on her windowsill, and spring knocks at the door. Back at the cottage, the cat wanders in from wherever she was and ignores Angela’s presence, burying her small body beneath the wool blankets of her cot and not deigning to look up. Angela tries throwing it a ball of yarn, but it unravels across the floor, unnoticed. She covers her face with her limp pillow, nearly screaming into the cotton cover. The house is empty, and she is alone. Sleep does not come.

* * *

Maybe it is because of the humid air and unforgiving sun, but summer goes by in a flash. Angela blames the weather for how her skin is often coated in sweat, and her palms are shaky, and her stomach is always tied in a knot. Four months are spent in complete agony. Angela pretends that her studies are able to bring her some relief, but with every fake smile, her aunt stares through her lies and directly into her soul.

* * *

Music pours softly from the main ballroom. Her cup is filled with brandy, and she nurses the liquid in small sips as she watches the party take place. On a night like this, when the divisions between realms are at their weakest, magic flows freely all around them – from one body to another, one soul to another. The atmosphere of celebration is enough to make her head spin, tangling in wide circles around her, but the bite of her drink helps ease her pains. It's psychosomatic, of course. Alcohol does very little for a witch other than trick the mind. It helps to ease the sting, nevertheless, swaying to the melody and coating her tongue with warm syrup, as if no threats existed beyond the Chateau walls.

From her vantage point on the mezzanine, overlooking the dance floor, she spies as the Countess leads another spirit in a choreography, moving along with the rhythm of the band. A man, this time, but for the two previous songs she had chosen a woman. She is elegant, as always, though infinitely more corporeal than her counterparts. Her skin is no longer tinted in purples and blues, now flushed and warmed by blood taken by force. The fangs are hidden by her softened smile. Her neck glitters under the chandelier lights. The goblin-forged diamond necklace had been expensive, yes, but now Angela had more coins than she knew what to do with. The scent of withered life lingers. Unfortunately, Angela could only do so much.

She thinks about joining the other guests downstairs. She had promised the hostess a dance, when she had arrived, but her muscles are weighed down by scratching worries. The regional council had sent another soldier to patrol near her aunt’s cottage, the third within a month. With the government closing in on them, little by little, the coven might yet refuse her aunt refuge if they ever learn about Angela’s studies. They had exchanged sour words about it just before Angela left for the party. She felt guilty about it. Worried. Scared, even.

She feels her presence before she sees her. After running circles around each other for more than a year, it is something she was obliged to learn to recognize, lest her heart play cunning tricks on her hope.

Moira greets her with the same arrogance she always sports.

“And how fares my favorite guardian angel?”

Angela does not turn. “Much better, now that she is in the company of a demon”, she says, a hint of amusement in her words. Moira laughs, the sound reverberating in Angela’s bones, and she feels as she steps closer. Angela remains facing the center of the ballroom.

She talks like they are old friends, and Angela wonders if that might not have become true, somewhere along the lines, just the same as they had become enemies. “You know, when your dear Countess sent me an invitation for a night dedicated to our kind, I thought it would be better to just draw a target on my forehead. But between your protection spells and the fact that there isn’t a mortal in sight, I finally feel like myself again.”

Moira comes to her side, resting her arms against the banister, and Angela takes a double-turn.

It is her, of course, but she looks so different. The copper hair usually styled in a bun is now short, brushed diligently over her head, and it takes on a scarlet shade under the floating lights. If she towered above Angela before, she must now stand another foot taller, and in her fitted suit, Angela can see her slender frame bending over, like a skeleton, to meet her eyes. Angela lets her. The left blue, the right red.

“Oh, my…”, she manages to breathe out, all other words escaping her grasp. Moira stiffens for a moment, her shoulders rising in tension, but whatever she finds when she searches Angela’s face is enough to smooth over any cracks.

Her presentation is masculine, and it fits her better than a waistcoat tailored by the kingdom’s best seamstress. The brandy leaves Angela brushing. Moira takes her silent admiration as an opportunity to explain herself.

“Isn’t it funny that I decide to come to a costume ball dressed as myself?”, she quips, and Angela jolts back on her heels. 

“So you were using a disguise spell! I knew it!”, is what she exclaims, and her treacherous hand reaches to trace the golden embroidery on Moira’s collar. It feels rough and real under her thumb. Moira lets her, lips twitching at the corners.

“A necessary precaution, sadly, especially after I was chased from my previous town. I suppose I… I suppose I could have shown myself to you, before, except I never found the right moment.”

“A lie by omission, one might say -- I suspect not the only one”, Angela accuses, and immediately regrets it. It comes out as a gut-reaction, a distraction from the butterflies threatening to burst forth from her stomach, rendered worse by the flinch coming from Moira’s side.

“If you are so _repulsed_ by a simple disguise spell, dear, then you best give up all hopes of making it as a _real_ spellcaster. You won’t last the year.”

She cuts through Angela like a well-sharpened knife, wearing her disapproval on her sleeve and something dreadful in her tone. She punctuates herself by walking away. It sounds final.

If she had paid a little more attention, she might have noticed that Moira was not angry, but rather hurt by her reaction. That Moira had hoped for a more accepting response to her sudden vulnerability. _To herself_. Alas, Angela is overcome with rage, raw and brutal, and she does not restrain from storming after the sorceress, her magic striking the air like static. 

“Oh, says the woman who came to me for help. I’m surprised you haven’t turned the entire village into servants by now, just as you seem so intent on doing with me.”

Her gloved hand grabs Moira by the sleeve, and she pulls her to face her once again, nearly spitting out her words. “Then again, you might not be powerful enough to do it.”

Angela calls herself a pacifist, and though that might be true most nights, it does not stop her from seeking a fight. Because if destiny determined they are not to be lovers, nor colleagues, nor allies, then Angela has taken it as her damn business to make herself Moira’s nemesis. She’s had it. Moira crooks her head.

“Tell yourself what you want, witch. Can you deny my abilities, or the same discoveries that lead you to where you are now standing?”, she questions, and it feels like a punch in the stomach. However, the mockery in her words fade to something akin to hurt, and it is as if she had Angela by the throat.

“No… I didn’t think so. Enjoy the night.”

Angela stops her before she can fade away. The spell is enough to bind her into place, paralyzed, but Angela still holds on like she would disappear if she blinked. This close, she can feel her beating pulse. Smell her perfume, wood-like, her magic mixed with it. Moira clenches her jaw, and Angela can hear her teeth pressing firmly together.

Angela pushes out her breath. “You hold these claims so confidently in your grasp – then prove them!”, she settles on saying, after nearly missing her mark. It catches Moira by surprise, and she slumps towards Angela’s touch.

“Pardon me?”

Her eyes flick over her form, trying to pick out an explanation just from her body language, only to return to hers. Angela does not wait before continuing. “Every final word, every patronizing smile, every provocation. If you think of yourself this irreproachable, this _impeccable_ , show me that you are not bluffing.”

With a flick of her wrist, the abandoned brandy cup floats from the banister to her unoccupied hand, and Angela must be actively careful not to shatter the glass with her grip. She rips out one of her gloves with her teeth, then traces the surface of the drink with her digits, turning the liquid into a bright green concoction. The scent of wet soil and grass overtakes them. Moira sucks in the air through her teeth, and Angela can guess that she is running the tip of her tongue over the back of them.

“Indulge in my truth serum, Moira, or never dare cross paths with me again.”

She doesn’t feel remorse, because she is giving her a choice, in the end.

If she refuses, then they can stop wasting each other’s time – Angela will bring her case to the coven, they will break the spell out of duty, and Moira will leave her life as swiftly as she had entered it. In three decades or so, after Angela has become a healer in an Order or a court, she will hear about a sorceress rising into power further North, and she will feign surprise.

If Moira drinks, however, she can’t tell what that will mean. She secretly hopes that it means that she cares.

For a second, neither of them move. Then, quite harshly, Moira rips the cup from Angela’s hand. She can already hear the sound of glass smashing against the marble floor.

“You’ll be the fucking death of me”, Moira roars, and downs the entire drink in one gulp.

Overcome by shock, Angela lets go, and watches in awe when Moira dries her mouth with the back of her knuckles. For the first time since they met, Angela notices the twisting scars that span her right hand and arm, eating away at where her nails should be and up towards the side of her neck. The result of a spell gone wrong, she’s sure, later concealed by the enchantment in order to maintain her perfectly-constructed facade. Angela does not feel bad for finding that they suit her.

It isn’t a particularly strong spell, meaning the only physical indication that it has taken effect is how Moira’s pupils dilate, leaving behind a sliver of color that is not enough to grant her an unfocused strike. Angela might have released her, but Moira steps forward and grabs her by her arms, leaning down so that their noses are merely centimeters apart, and she bares her teeth as if she is about to take a bite.

“Go on. Ask to your _heart_ ’s content”, she drawls, slipping deeper into her accent. Angela needs a second longer to recover. She doesn’t recoil, though, holding her gaze like she is about to attack an enraged dragon.

“Fine. Let me start with a simple question - who are you, really?”

She places her hands on Moira’s abdomen, right where her ribcage ends, and presses the warm skin underneath just enough to keep her from coming any closer, while simultaneously enough to keep her from going away.

“Moira O’Deorain, from the northern coast. I’m a sorceress, as you know, and a former mage of the Watch of Light, though I would consider myself an all-around academic”, she answers, providing clarity rather than rolling her eyes as Angela had expected. 

The Watch - heroes of the land, protectors of the order, and instigators of war and destruction in all seven corners of the globe. They are mercenaries wearing gold medals. Angela is not surprised Moira worked for them.

She follows-up plainly. “And why were you removed from the organization?”. 

Discomfort flashes over Moira’s sharp features. Her thin lips press into a line, wrinkles forming at the corners, while her eyes flick to the side.

“I thought this you would have guessed…”, she begins bitterly, “They believed my craft was too dangerous, too volatile. Every time I tried to push past the boundaries of common enchantment, to seek new methods, they found a way to shackle me back down to mediocrity. Eventually my voice proved louder than theirs, and from fear, they decided to silence me.”

Despite the memories being unpleasant, Moira does not move. She seems willing enough to have Angela pry at her personal life. Regardless of the effects of the spell, Angela takes it as a consent to move into more dangerous inquiries.

“And your lover?”

At this, Moira seems nearly amused, and Angela immediately feels like an idiot for asking.

“Was not someone directly involved with it. We had met a couple of centuries ago, when we were students, and accidentally ran into each other later in life. Our relationship was casual, mostly, and she eventually grew impatient.” 

Moira pauses. She swallows, and Angela can see the muscles of her neck working at it. It almost feels too intimate to stare. “I… Became bored and forced our separation. It hurt her, I’m sure, even if it was for the best. Can’t say I didn’t get what I deserved.”

The way in which she trails off edges towards a lethal territory, so Angela does her best to take in lightness. Unsure of anything better to do, she feigns a laugh, croaky and empty, then crooks an eyebrow at the taciturn sorceress.

“A little pain now to prevent a festering wound, later on. I understand your logic, though I would agree you deserved it…”

To her dismay, the act falls flat amidst the sincerity of the conversation. Panic flares up within her, and Angela chews on the inside of her cheek before thinking of something else to say. She can’t focus, not when any stranger would mistake their grip for an embrace. Moira watches, silently, measuring her up as she does whenever Angela strays. 

Nothing comes up. Her hands trail up to Moira’s shoulders.

“… Did you love her?”, she eventually asks, because she might as well bite the bullet now, when she can try to pass it off as innocent curiosity. Moira relaxes, finally, and she feels how she stretches the muscles of her back opposite to her touch.

“No. Not in the true, pure, holy sense. The love spell is surely an homage to the nature of it all.”

She says it as if it is the dullest fact in the world. Angela is unsure if she feels relieved or disappointed.

However, when Angela does not respond in a tangible manner, she takes it upon herself to bring them closer. Her hands find the buttons that close her gown, in the small of her back, and she taps the pearly surface with a nail, distracting from her other fingers lightly brushing the exposed skin above the trim. Angela’s eyes narrow. 

She is afraid of getting ahead of herself.

“Right. Say, if I do manage to break the spell, what will you do?”

Her ungloved hand slips upwards, resting on the junction between collarbone and neck. She could certainly feel her pulse, if she breached the silk collar of her shirt. Moira moves closer, just slightly, and their cheeks press together.

“’When’ seems the most adequate term, _Angela_ … Let’s see… Head west, most likely? I had an offer, recently, which I might take up if a better opportunity does not present itself.”

Her words are delivered directly to her ear. A chill runs down her spine, and Angela nearly allows a broken sound to escape from her throat.

“Like what? A wicked stepmother casting call?”, she banters, and her entire body trembles along to Moira’s chuckle.

Her answer is equally whispered.

“You tell me. After all, it would be ludicrous to take on a new job when I am being weighed down by a curse.”

It is only now that Angela notices that they have begun to move along to the song. They haven’t stepped away, of course, but there is something inherently rhythmic about how Moira has begun to sway them both, side to side, slowly shifting the weight from one leg to another.

“Except I am yet to curse you”, Angela points out. 

Her head feels stuffed with cotton. Moira takes the lead, now, and they glide to one side, then to the other.

“Oh, but you have. Or have you forgotten that night in the woods, when all you needed to save me from that damned bullet wound was a second-grade healing spell and your pure, selfless heart?”, Moira claims, though her words lack the teasing tone Angela had expected. As a result, her response gradually shifts in tone. From light-hearted banter…

“How _kind_ of you to insult my magic! And I saved your dead cat, you twit. Unless…”

… To realization.

They stop. Angela looks to Moira for answers, but finds something voracious instead.

“Yes, that night what you saved looked like a cat”, she agrees, “Why don’t I tell you a bit about my apprenticeship?”

Unsure, Angela nods.

“Nowadays I don’t discriminate in my studies, but back when I was a child, I took quite an interest in Biology. I wanted to learn how bodies are formed, and how I could transform those building blocks of life into something I could mold. Transfiguration was the perfect fit.”

As she speaks, Moira brings them into movement once again. Her right arm wraps around Angela’s waist, more confident than before, and she twirls them around. Once, twice, three times. Slowly and carefully, like she delivers the information.

“You couldn’t have. I can see Oscar from here, lapping up milk right next to the bard. How can you explain that?”, is what Angela protests, craning her neck to the side to steal a glance at the aforementioned animal, mingling among the spectral guests. Moira raises a hand to her chin, holding her for a beat before turning her face back to her. Their eyes meet, once more, and from her reflection on the glassy surface Angela can tell that she really is coming clean. Moira releases her waist and supports her face on both palms.

“I never owned a pet cat, Angela. I have a rabbit – Oscar is a rabbit”, she explains, and Angela pushes herself out of her grasp as if she had been struck by lightning.

Her subconscious finishes the puzzle. A part of her, one she tries to repress, breaks away from her chains and storms to the front, nearing hysteria. 

“The cat was just another disguise, is that it?”, she almost yells, voice cracking. “You were going mad, locked inside the house, and you needed a way to head outside without the love spell giving you a hard time. That’s why you wanted me to keep the cat! You needed somewhere to hide, like a coward!”

Angela takes a step back, but Moira matches her nearly instantly, though her hands are now cautiously kept behind her. Her posture resembles that of a gatekeeper trying to tame a wild beast – firm, but ultimately willing. 

“Admittedly, not my proudest moment. Don’t think I am not grateful for your hospitality.” 

She attempts to ease the situation, and fails as Angela’s legs press up to the wood of the banister.

“Why come up with the contest, then? It’s not like having men chasing you as a cat would have been any different to doing so in human form. In fact, it had you almost dead.”

Now, her syllables do come out jagged, and Angela just stares at the ground ahead of her. Moira sighs. Eventually she brings her face up again, more firmly than before.

“I didn’t. It was a rumor that got out of hand, and suddenly I was trapped.”

That just about does it. Angela stares incredulously.

“I tried to spin it to my advantage”, she goes on, exasperated, “but it backfired miserably.”

_She did lie, after all._

Suddenly it all seems pointless. A sickening knot crawls up her esophagus, and Angela tastes the bile at the back of her throat. Moira had seen her kindness and taken her as a fool, and it made her _furious._

Furious and heartbroken.

Her ungloved hand collides with Moira’s cheek. She might have the advantage in size, but Angela is more than a fair opponent when it comes to strength, and she is the one initiating it. Moira buckles and spits out a curse, covering the reddened skin with her own touch. Aware that any spells done in such a state of mind are sure to retaliate, she tries to grab her by the lapels, but Moira intercepts the attack.

“The truth? You did save me, that night, and cursed me at the same time”, Moira growls, and it occurs to Angela that perhaps, while she was busy bottling up her feelings and leaving them to rot inside her brain, Moira may have been similarly aggrieved.

“You cursed me, little witch, cursed me to want you.”

In the split second that it takes for Angela to come to a decision, her eyes fall upon Moira’s left hand, on the sharp nails she dons, filed like talons, painted black. She remembers the angry scratch she had received, so long ago now, when the black cat had run its claws over the skin of her arm, drawing vivid blood forth to spill unto the carpet. Will she do the same, now? Do it _again_?

She prances forward, catching Moira’s bottom lip between her teeth.

Chest to chest. Mouth to mouth. Tongue on tongue.

When you are a witch, it is imperative that you grow up hearing fairytales. The stories used to instill fear on fragile mortal children are passed on to you by your elders, generation to generation, as sacred knowledge that serves as a foundation for your magical education. You learn of every monster, demon, and god before you even realize that ‘mama’ is not your mother’s name, and by the time you can spell your own, you begin to recognize yourself in the bedtime tales and nursery rhymes. You are the villain, yes, but oh so powerful. Feared. Adored in a wicked sense you will only question in adulthood. 

But where there are witches, there are also princesses. There are knights. There are true love’s kisses and happy endings.

It is on that night, one of All Hallow’s Eve, hours after the clock has struck twelve, that Angela sees herself as the hero of a fairytale for the first time. And all it takes is a kiss.

* * *

She can’t recall when it started, but all across the land there are whispers of a witch more wicked than there had ever been.

“The Witch of the Wilds”, they call her.

Angela grows fond of the title.

* * *

“You know, I could just kill her”, Angela comments half-mindlessly, face nuzzled in the junction between Moira’s exposed back and her neck. Tracing the edge of the scars with her lips earns her a pleased hum. Her skin smells like a delightful mixture of cologne, smoke, and sweat.

Her disguise is beautiful, yes, but she prefers her like this.

“Hm?”, comes the reply, muffled by the fact that her lover has not yet brushed sleep away. She is content to just lay there, in her arms, while morning rises outside of the cottage. Angela turns her ministrations to the nape of her neck, the back of her ear.

“Your _former_ fling”, she clarifies, voice low. “Kill her for just long enough to sever the ties of her magic, then bring her back. _It is_ the easiest way to end such a complex spell.”

There were other solutions to their problems, countless ones that did not involve murder, but Angela found all of them unsatisfying, and neither of them could seem to agree on one. She saw how the lingering presence weighs Moira down, even if she is not one to confess to it. It had been an arduous process to figure out their relationship, like weaving a rope a thousand kilometers long, only to keep finding knots along the way. Angela wanted to rid herself of the knots. Regardless if it meant cutting them with a scissor and stitching the ends back together.

“And would you be willing to go through with it?”

Because Moira won’t is implied. Still, she turns to face her, brushing loose strands of blonde hair from over Angela’s eyes with sleep-warmed fingertips. Angela presses against her touch, shrugging. 

“I don’t see much harm in it if I am able to bring her back… And even if I am not, I will still do it, if you ask me to.”

She figures it is better to simplify matters, rather than give them unnecessary power over their romance. Moira looks conflicted, for a moment, but then unfurrows her brow. 

“Occam’s Razor – the simplest solution is always the better one. You might be onto something”, she says, staring at the ceiling. Angela can nearly sense her inner thought process – how she places the pros against cons, deriving outcomes from previous patterns, drawing conclusions.

“Of course, there is the matter of payment…”, Angela lilts, and the play in her voice chases away Moira’s demons.

“That can be easily arranged.”

She pins her to the mattress, and she is gentle. At first.

* * *

She kills her cleanly. A merciful death, if there ever was one, despite the countless times Moira had told her mercy was something better left for the weak. The enchantress is not who she expected her to be – bookwormish and pliant, not the vile temptress she had pictured in her mind – and in softness Angela resurrects her as soon as her spell dissipates into pink-toned smoke. She coats her in healing spells, curing potions, yellow glow and wool blankets. Cleans the blood from her sweat-coated forehead with a damp towel. Offers her nothing but affection and kindness, assuring her that it had not been but a nightmare.

As payment, she takes a fragment of her heart, locks it away in her jewelry box. Bring the wood container to your ear, and you may even heart it beating, over and over. It is the piece Moira had broken. Angela can’t imagine she will miss it.

With the spell broken, the village mortals are left aching and confused. The topic of dark magic becomes increasingly present in the priest’s sermons, and as he calls out for purification, Moira twists their pinky fingers together, hidden away from judging eyes behind the chapel’s benches. They bathe themselves in charms to draw out the attention of the guards.

* * *

One day, her aunt announces that her training is completed, and that the coven has offered her a position within their council. Angela hugs her, beaming with happiness and relief. The affection takes the old woman by surprise, but eventually she gives into the touch and returns it, in celebration.

“Thank you”, Angela tells her, “For everything.”

Her aunt’s palm runs over her hair, awkwardly, and Angela decides, then and there, that this will be the last moment of her so-called youth.

“No need to thank me, sweet girl. Now, will you accept the position?”

She does ask, but the intonation behind her words gives away that she already knows the answer. Angela shakes her head, and steps back. 

“You know I can’t.”

A thousand words go unspoken in the silence that overcomes them. After a moment of consideration, her aunt crosses her arms, turning to watch as one of the royal guards walks slowly in front of the cottage. The armored woman stares at them through the tinted window.

“It may be for the best”, she admits.

* * *

Moira takes on the job she had been offered – a mage for a powerful organization pulling the strings all over the globe. Terrorists and criminals, Angela knows, but at the very least they are attempting to incite change. They won’t impose restrictions on their magic, either. It may very well be their only chance at freedom, and so, as soon as Angela is relieved of her duties as an apprentice, they make plans to leave.

The following week, at three in the morning, the royal guard is positioned outside of the cottage’s door, holding a warrant for their arrest and execution. The list of charges is brief – servant of the Dark Arts, deception, depravity. Neither her nor her aunt are dumb to say anything, since arguing with the ignorant is a workaround way of digging your own grave deeper than it already is, and they are led outside in chains made of silver. The material burns an angry mark into her skin.

Moira had been away, that night, gone over the mountains to meet with an old friend who depended upon her magic. A reaper, she had said. 

The stars could not have aligned more perfectly.

She is dragged along the cobbled streets she knows so well. The entire village is awake, standing on their toes, watching in both fear and fascination. The bakers and their son. The old gentleman with the cat. Children half-hidden behind their parent’s legs. She crosses eyes with one of the women who were gossiping, the night she headed into the forest and found a cat, and from her spot in the parade, she hears the desperate prayer she mumbles. 

For herself, of course, not Angela.

The pyre is set up on the main square, because it is not enough to deliver punishment – they must set an example. The guards strap them to it, back to back, sparing no amount of force upon their seemingly delicate frames. She notes how sloppy their work has become. With the priest and his choir proclaiming rhymes of justice, the mayor’s voice is nearly inaudible as he reads the declaration aloud. Sent directly by Her Royal Majesty, he is sure to announce. 

She’ll later pay her a visit, she decides, seen as all this commotion ruined a perfectly decent new moon.

“Heretic!”, the crowd exclaims. Angela remembers how afraid she had been, a couple of years ago, just to run into hunters a little out of their disposition. How every mortal who came too close stirred panic within her. How she would have rather bowed to them, puny as a rat, than suffer the same fate as the rest of her ancestors.

“Whore!”, comes the cry. Typical.

She was blind, then.

Blind to her powers.

To her identity.

“Witch!”, says one brave little soul. The executioner brings forth a lit torch, its orange flames dancing in pretty patterns, warm and welcoming.

_To her immortality._

As barbaric and uncultured the kingdom’s hatred of magic might have been, theoretically speaking, their queen was no fool. She had been more than correct to persecute those who wielded the dark arts, or students of the arcane, or every other subject capable of understanding that cracked glass can shatter with just a gentle touch. If life were a game, she might have even won, had she acted earlier.

For you see, she could have sent her guards a decade ago. She could have easily hung an old woman, the one who lived in a secluded cottage, and gotten away with it. There are always excuses, aren’t there? She could have ordered a silver blade to descend on her teenage student’s neck, then put the blame on a rogue guard. No one would have thought too hard about it, right?

The winning move was within the kingdom’s fingertips all along.

And yet, the crown chose to set flames to a witch who did not burn.

* * *

Without messengers to carry the tale, the surrounding territories do not hear about it until a week later. The information is delivered from mouth to mouth – something that the son of the cousin of the sister-in-law of a merchant who had been headed that way told you about when you were out to do the day’s shopping. All names of those involved are lost, except for one.

“Haven’t you heard?”, asks a young lady, “The entire town was overrun with dark magic!”

The baker, coming in from the kitchen with a tray filled with donuts, nearly bumps into the marble counter. The wrinkles around her eyes deepen with worry. 

“How many dead?”, she questions, already afraid of the answer. At this, the girl nearly trips over her feet, grasping the edges of the counter-top as she bends over it. Her eyes are popped wide, like a bug’s.

“That’s the worst part! No one died, except for an old woman. Everyone else swore loyalty to the witch!”

When the girl stops talking, the entire clientele turns to face her. A deafening silence falls upon them. The baker has gone pale.

“Say again?”, mutters a gentleman in a worn top hat.

With the increased attention upon her, the girl runs sweaty hands over the linen of her skirts. Her eyes dart to all the adults in the room, all petrified, all looking at her as if she could determine their fates with her words. She stumbles once more, likely because of how she is shaking. “Servants…. Servants…They became her servants.”

“Whose?”, the gentleman insists.

Tears gather down the girl’s cheeks. The severity of the situation, once just fresh gossip, drenches her like swamp water. It takes her another twenty-two seconds to be able to find her voice, and when she does, all that comes out is a sob.

“The Witch of the Wild’s.”

No one dares to speak up. Most gazes fall to the floor, except for one elderly woman. She grips her cane with wrinkled hands, and her cataract-faded eyes turn to the ceiling before she closes them somberly.

“Rest their souls.”

* * *

The sun had started to show face through the crowns of the pine trees, coral light taking over the devastated battlefield, reflecting off scrap metal back towards the sky. There is a chill in the air, and the skin uncovered by her leather bodice is quickly covered in goosebumps. She watches from her vantage point on the balcony of the watchtower. Across from her, near the castle doors, the valiant heroes begin to collect their dead and lick their wounds. 

Adlersbrunn was still standing. 

_Barely_ , the witch noted.

Whether or not the ambush was successful was beyond the terms of their pact. Gabriel had told her of an idealistic engineer who wished to bring a creature of his own fabrication into life, and perhaps out of boredom, she had decided to indulge him. His soul for a life was the agreement, but then matters of revenge and a hard-headed castle lord made everything more complicated than it should have been. She was willing to have a defeat associated with her name if it meant collecting her payment and being rid of him.

Junkenstein. What a funny name.

A glance at the stone bridge ahead of her tells her that his last breaths are quickly drawing in. His semi-broken body had been left outside, surrounded by his automatons, and the sight was so pitiful that she nearly thought of resurrecting him, one last time. Offer him to pass with more dignity.

A twitch in the shadows, caught from the corner of her eye, distracts her from her thoughts. She observes as the darkest parts in the cramped room, those not illuminated by the candles she had set up, contract and expand, taking dimension and opacity they had not held before. From the cloud steps forth an imposing figure, claimer of empty space, composed of sharp angles decorated with elegant gestures.

“Glad to see it all went according to plan”, Moira greets, and Angela rolls her eyes at the sarcasm.

“The plan was suicidal to begin with! I can only do so much.”

Nevertheless, she opens her arms to meet her, slotting herself into an ever-familiar embrace. Moira’s chin presses to the crown of her head, her pointed nose caressing the wispy bun of hair that had once been hidden away by a hat, and they set aside the moment to take each other in. Her senses are overcome by firewood. Moira’s scent never changed, even if her favorite cologne was discontinued over two centuries ago. Angela stands on her toes to kiss her.

Once, twice, three times.

She holds her by her jaw, and from the proximity, Angela can see the dark circles stamped under her tired eyes. Come to think of it, Angela hasn’t slept in over a week, three days after she had sealed the blood-pact, and Moira had been busy over her head long before that.

“As you say, a small setback”, she responds after a fourth kiss, finally setting back down on her heels. “I will need another hour or so, to let the dust settle. Then I can collect the payment and we can go home.”

Home was an abstract term, to them. It was much too easy to set up residence in a mansion in the outskirts of a town, or to find a generational inn where they could rest for a few nights, but setting down roots was a challenge neither of them had expected, especially so after decades of angry mobs following them around the land. Running for so long made them eager to find a place to claim as theirs, but somehow they never did. The fortress controlled by Talon, the organization whose ranks of command Moira eventually won her place into, was the closest to a permanent residence they had, even if it bordered the edge of militaristic. It was there Angela had made reference to.

Moira hums, running her hands over Angela’s arms. She feels the scratches that roughen the surface of her skin, silver-imposed, and soon she is fussing over her, trying to pick out all the injuries Angela’s magic had not been able to conceal. Angela allows her, resting her face against her velvet-clad chest while Moira runs the diagnostics. There is a sharp intake of air when Moira’s hand, previously sprawled over the side of her abdomen, comes out coated in blood.

“Angela…”, she tries, and from the perplexed expression that washes over her features, Angela considers that she might have undersold how badly the ambush had gone. She does her best to brush the stabbing pain off. Her powers will take care of it, eventually, so there is no need for concern. 

“Mortals have become quite the inconvenience, haven’t they? Them and their silver bullets…”

There is a distinct shake in her tone, and Moira pinches the bridge of her nose. 

“Perhaps, next time, it would be wise to send someone else to sort out the other end of the deal. You are no battle champion, dear, and neither am I.”

Moira has a tendency to lecture, even if centuries of companionship have proven them to be on more than equal footing, magic or otherwise. Deep down, Angela knows she is better to thank her – Moira may be reckless with her magic, yes, but Angela is twice as reckless with her own life, now that she has abused it past the limits of normalcy.

“I will be alright”, she insists. “Our allies were the ones to take the sharp end of their forces. We must pay them a visit, later, to ensure that their recovery is a speedy one.”

With a mind as brilliant as she possesses, Moira understands that the path of least resistance is to let the subject go, which she does by placing a light kiss on Angela’s dust-covered forehead. 

“I will sort it out.”

She looks out the window, down at the carnage over the castle’s entrance, and her eyes narrow onto the piles of bodies thrown around. Even from their far-away position, the stench of the cadavers already clings to the fresh morning air. 

“Would it be too much to ask that you finish business now, rather than later?”, Moira asks with a certain malleability to her words. 

Truth be told, Angela isn’t sure of what she is dreading more – heading outside, or counting the minutes here, where the memories from the night prior wash over her in periodic waves, leaving her to swallow as if her lungs were filled with saltwater. She sighs, taking Moira’s extended arm for both consolation and balance.

“Join me.”

They march arm-in-arm into the devastated battlefield. The remaining enemy guards, who had been sent out to search for survivors among the masses of the dead, bow their heads with heavy silence when they walk past. They are not allies, far from it. And yet, there remains respect when fear takes the reins. A third of the way across the bridge, she finds the body of her client. The rise and fall of his chest is almost imperceptible, so it is not a surprise that the soldiers took him for dead, but the ribbon of his life remains stretched by fate’s hands, hanging by a thread. His empty gaze tells them he is no longer there. Moira raises an eyebrow at him.

“He would have made a fine scientist, I suppose, had his passions not taken the best of him.”

A grim tune plays from the castle’s bell, its sounds muffled by layers upon layers of thick, stone-carved walls. The funerary rites have been initiated. All flags have been lowered down. They may have won the battle, saved themselves from the invasion, but the number of lives lost will surely make their Lord question if victory has been worth it. Angela crooks her head at the dying man. Unlike him, his creature had been brought outside in wrapped sheets, each carrying a piece to be destroyed by the flames. 

A tragic tale to be kept in storybooks. 

She is taken aback at how sadness has settled over her.

“Darling, he was just a lonely man”, Angela says, “and loneliness turns people into monsters more than any other vice or sin.”

The man is wheezing, now, whatever air he manages to take in buzzing into his smashed lungs with great difficulty. In two minutes or so, he will begin to fully asphyxiate. In three, he will be dead. When she is certain that Angela has gone to a far away place, her thoughts occupied by something other than the payment she must collect, Moira holds her a little more tightly. Then, with the sole of her pristine shoe, she applies pressure to the dying man’s neck until she feels his spine crunch under her heel.

_Mercy was for the weak, and they have been weak, as of late._

* * *

In the heart of the afternoon, the local park is bustling with families with children, pigeons, and elderly couples. Angela stands out amidst them, sitting by herself on a solitary bench with her grimoire nestled on her crossed legs and a glass of wine poured in a floating glass. She may burn, by standing in the sunlight for so long, but she is sure it is nothing some salve can’t manage. A group of four or five schoolgirls keep close watch on her as they come set up for a picnic, to her right, carrying thick, leather-bound books under their arms in an all-too-familiar way. It is her appearance that they find odd, not her magic.

It may be time to swap her old hat for something a tad more modern, it seems. A quick glance at her wristwatch tells her she has been by herself for over fifteen minutes, and she starts to grow impatient. It wasn’t like she had asked her to procure a gorgon’s heart, or a basilisk’s fang, or anything as mystical and rare. 

She squints at the crowd gathered in the nearby market, and finds that a certain figure stands out from her peers. Angela takes a healthy sip of her drink while she walks over.

“Thank heavens! I was starting to worry you finally got fed up with me and decided to hurry off with some pretty young thing.”

Angela is quick to poke fun – eternal life would be very dull if she didn’t retain a sense of humor. Moira sits down next to her, dropping the basket on Angela’s lap and furrowing her brow as if she had just heard the most scandalous accusation. 

“Perhaps I should”, Moira retaliates, “then I might get stuck with someone who knows how to say ‘thank you’, and not some _ungrateful brat ._ ”

Angela laughs as she puts her book aside, and it is the most beautiful, genuine sound heard in that corner of the land. 

“Don’t pretend you don’t know how grateful I can be. It’s unbecoming.”

She opts for rummaging through the contents of the basket, rather than pay any mind to the grimace Moira is faking, as if a scorn could make Angela bend in any direction other than the one she had settled for. Now, how dashing she looks in her casual clothes - _that_ might lead to bending in the near future.

“Didn’t they have any chocolate?”, Angela questions, more frustrated than disappointed. They had made a tradition of lazy afternoons like these, when they play at being normal, and enjoying treats from over the mountains was an essential component of the routine. Moira clicks her tongue, summoning a glass of her own drink of choice. 

“Apparently the bakery received a shipment of a limited-edition variety. The entire town had the same idea as us, except that those barbarians are willing to throw punches over candy. They made a dog’s breakfast of it.”

Angela turns to look at the marketplace. Surely enough, a very muscular woman is sitting on a crate outside the bakery, holding a bloodied cloth over her broken nose. Angela is unsure if she wants to see the state of the other guy. She is about to say that it is fine, the words dripping from her lips, when Moira produces a foil-wrapped bar from a puff of mist.

“The mind rules over the body, and the day is saved”, Moira declares in triumph. 

She watches with a complacent smirk when Angela reaches for the prized offering. The beverage she is sipping leaves behind a pleasant buzz, gold-coated and sweet like bees and honey, and the spring breezes bleed with summer airs in a beautiful collaboration. 

The green grass stretched in front of them is dotted with weeds and flowers, making for a colorful landscape. These are naturally-occurring, though, the product of the eternal cycles dictated by mother nature, and unlike their artificially-bred counterparts, the flowers carry no love-obsessed pollen.

Using her fingers to part a pastry into two halves, Angela offers her a piece to eat. She grabs it, watching wordlessly when Angela licks the sugary coating from her thumb.

There is a council meeting scheduled for the night, and an attack on a troublesome royal family set to take place sometime within the next month. There will be blood on their hands before they are able to wash off the remaining stains. That is the order of their lives, the clockwork with which they accumulated both power and knowledge, and how they will continue to do so until the skies turn red and doom descends upon this plane of existence. And, if their track record tells anything, that will continue into their next life, too.

Moira doesn’t care – she has never measured efforts when in pursuit of her studies, and this lifestyle suits her more than perfectly. And Angela? Angela has lapses of guilt, flashes of remorse, persistent no matter how absurd her talents show themselves to be. Moira does her best to extinguish any intruding thoughts, but in all honesty, she knows that it is her lover’s moral backbone, paired with how Angela throws herself against it, that creates the momentum of her magic. A force to be reckoned with. Absolutely magnificent. 

Besides, Angela has Death itself wrapped around her finger. Any wrongdoing that shields her from sleep can be sorted out before dawn breaks.

The chocolate is imported from Angela’s homeland. It may appear superficial, for creatures like them to take the day off and indulge in sweets in a lively park, as if they were just another mortal couple with a few hours to burn, as if an eternity of tipping the scales of destiny was not stretched ahead of them, but it is important. A few fingers of whiskey, sneezing at the pollen, walking the dogs after a long day of work. All of the small things that could easily be brushed aside by the burdens of immortality are an essential step in preserving their personalities - their identity. Their love keeps them tethered, too, but love is hardly as manageable as evening outings and mundane dates. Tempestuous is what love is, especially so in their case.

_The chocolate is imported from Angela’s homeland_ , and she lets it melt on her mouth as if it were the most precious delicacy she ever tasted. For a while, they savor the snack in relaxed silence, attention trailing from the pretty scenery to a loud group of children running down the grass like a stampede, charging after an enchanted ball. The smallest one, a scrawny boy, moves a bit too harshly for his own muscles, and falls flat on his knees and stomach. It is clear he scraped a good chunk of skin off, but he only stops for a slip-second, swallowing his tears before catching up with his friends. 

The oldest kicks the ball with her toe, and the combined pushing force of her pass with the magic embedded in the toy sends it scarring off to where Angela and Moira are sitting, and the children pause in horror. It would have hit anyone else square in the face, but battle-instilled instincts allow Moira to stop it mid-air, floating about a meter from where they were once sat undisturbed.

“Ma’am! We are so sorry!”, screams the girl, storming in their direction while her companions attempt to match her pace. Rather than glare at the children until they dropped dead, as Angela would have once expected of her, Moira holds the toy on her palm, feeling its weight with a twitch of her eyelids. 

She considers the object for a second, as the kids approach them, then states: “One side is heavier than the other. You would be wise to have it re-calibrated.”

The girl smiles cautiously. “Thanks”, she says, a little out of breath. 

Moira throws her the toy, and she catches it with a muffled thump. 

“Again, so sorry”, adds the middle child. Their front tooth is missing, and their grin somewhat resembles that of a young pup, with how careless it is. Angela would have snorted at the interaction, maybe dared to say Moira had gone soft, but the boy’s bleeding knees leave her bothered. A long forgotten memory bubbles up to the surface of her mind, one from when she was still a student under her aunt’s care. A client’s family had been cursed, and they needed blood from the attacker’s kin to be able to clear the spell. The child must have been of a similar age. Angela remembered shushing his cries, but not much else.

“Hey”, she says in a sweet tone, “would you like me to take a look at that?”

The boy’s eyes widen when she addresses him, then dart to his injury as if he had already forgotten it had happened. He nods, earnestly, and Angela can see his stare has become glossy.

“Alright.”

She puts down the remainder of the chocolate bar, and dusts off her hands. Then, all it takes is a small flutter of her fingertips, the tiniest bit of concentration, and a light puff of magic for the boy’s skin to mend over the injury. The new skin is just the same as before, if only warmed from the magic. All children stare in wonder, and so do the schoolgirls close by. 

“There, good as new. You should really be more careful when running around.”

The boy only nods, hands all over the healed injury, as if he could not believe what he saw. 

“Are you two wizards?”, asks the girl, starstruck.

Moments like these really made the passage of time clear. What a long way from pitchforks and pyres they had come. Moira shakes her head, just a little offended. “I’m a sorceress”, she clarifies, “and my wife is a witch".

That, too, was nearly surreal to hear, no matter how many times she used the word. By mortal law, on top of it.

The children let out a long, synchronized ‘woah’. Then, they exclaim their thanks, one on top of the other, and with a short goodbye, turn on their heels. Just before darting off, though, the middle child turns back, and points to Angela’s hand.

“Is that a goblin ring, ma’am?”, they ask, voice timid but overcome with curiosity. Moira smirks into her drink, and Angela lifts her hand to give the child a better look.

“Dwarven, actually.”

The child smacks their forehead, mumbling “right!”, as if it were an obvious thing to know. 

“Why?”, Angela presses, curious as to where the conversation is headed. 

The child points not to the intricate design of the gold, but to the stone encrusted on it. 

“My dad is a jeweler, and I guess I have a knack for it, too. It’s very well made.”

_It better be_ , Moira comments to herself, _I had to kill bloody a dragon to gather the metal for it._

Angela’s godfather had accepted no material less fine than the absolute best.

“But can I ask why pick a pearl, and not a diamond?”

Angela giggles in response, running her opposite index finger over the cold surface of the pearl, mind flooded with pieces of her own past. The ring, the pearl, and the woman by her side – they all had been crucial elements in the making of her story.

“You might not believe it, but I actually won it in a contest.”

Of all the victories the Witch of the Wilds had gathered under her belt, that particular one was the most treasured. It was the one she had stumbled upon, accidentally, only for it to become the work of her lifetime.

As it turns out, the pearl had never been lost to the woods - it had remained locked away, concealed under a sorceress' magic, waiting for the day it would be given to its new owner. How the person who started the rumor was even aware of its existence is a mystery that will remain unsolved.

Perhaps it was just fate, trying to tell a story.

_A story that started with gossip, as most do, and a lost cat in the woods._

**Author's Note:**

> The fragment at the beginning is from Oscar Wilde's "Her Voice". It goes without saying, but I am not the first to nickname Moira's pet rabbit "Oscar". The name is so fitting, I just could not find another one that felt right, so credit where it is due. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
